How Can My Manager “Manage” Me If She's Never Done My job?

I suspect this question has been asked by employees, contractors, indentured servants and slaves since the dawn of time.

Despite the fact that it's usually asked just after we've been directed to do something we see as a huge waste of time, it's actually a valid question. And one that can be argued from either side.

On the one hand, it is argued that the more a manager (or supervisor) knows about the operations she manages, the better she will be at managing that operation.

This argument seems to hold up most consistently at the supervisory level. Here, we are dealing with relatively unskilled work where the manager will be expected to train the employees he or she manages in the jobs they are expected to do. In this case, it is imperative that the manager fully understand each job and master all the tasks his subordinates will be expected to do. Additionally, it's helpful if the manager is capable of effectively transmitting that knowledge to his or her subordinates. 

On the other hand, it is argued that management is a distinct profession with specific skills, a specific base of knowledge and specific tools separate and distinct from the people, projects and things being managed.

This argument seems to hold up most consistently in situations where the manager is dealing with skilled workers doing jobs the manager may never be qualified to do the work the people he or she is managing are expected to do. A good example of this is a manager running an engineering development or R and D (Research and Development) project. Here, the manager may be expected to plan and control the work of people considered experts in their field who are eminently more qualified in their fields than she can ever hope to be. This doesn't mean that she'll be ineffective as a manager, it just means that she won't be the one designing the new product or conducting the research.

And this is as it should be. As a manager, she has been hired to plan, organize, schedule, and manage the effort. Her job is to make sure that the experts on her team have the tools they need to get the job done and to shield her team from as much “administrative crap” as possible.

Of course, this doesn't mean that a supervisor can't be effective simply because he hasn't mastered every job of every person working for him. Nor does it mean that a manager won't get the job done simply because she also happens to be the lead researcher on the project.

Personally, I think that the more a manger knows about the work to be done, the more effective he or she will be at making sure the team has the right tools, resources and time to get the job done.

Of course, I could be wrong. 

 What do you think?

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I'd love to hear what you think. Feel free to leave a comment here or e-mail me at: TomFawls@Council4SmallBiz.com.